A technique for remotely entangling ions of strontium much more accurately and at far higher rates than previously possible has been unveiled by physicists at Oxford University in the UK. The team says that their scheme paves the way to scalable quantum computers made from multiple ion traps that are linked to one another via photonic interconnects.
Manipulated by laser beams, the ions can be placed in a superposition and entangled with their neighbours. Although the coherence times of other technologies are often far shorter, ion traps are relatively slow and are limited in the numbers of qubits they can store. This is because it becomes increasingly difficult to accommodate the wiring and laser beams needed as more qubits are added. Therefore, researchers are exploring ways of connecting ion qubits in different traps.
The team managed to generate, on average, 182 entangled ion pairs per second, with a fidelity of 94%. (PhysicsWorld)
The research is described in preprint on arXiv.
